Gareth Southgate explains motivation behind ‘shelving’ England contract talks

Gareth Southgate says he has “shelved” contract talks with the Football Association, at his request, as he wants the England team to have the “clearest run they possibly can” ahead of Euro 2024. The manager joked that he has no idea where he’ll be after the tournament “other than I hope it’s Trafalgar Square and let’s get the party on”.

It has been thought Southgate would leave the job after Euro 2024, especially ahead of a summer with a lot of club jobs said to be available, but an exciting new generation of young English players – led by Jude Bellingham – may change that thinking.

Although the FA are keen to keep the 53-year-old, he wanted to put off all talks to avoid distracting the players. Southgate similarly pointed to how such decisions before tournaments can backfire, as with Fabio Capello in the past.

“I think we would have to sit and think about that at the end of the tournament,” he said at his press conference ahead of the March warm-up games.

“I’m happy to talk about it briefly now, but I’m not going to talk about it for the whole summer, what’s next? We’ve consciously shelved any discussions internally about what might be next because I think if we had sat and signed a new contract and done that before the tournament, everybody would have said, ‘Well, you did this with Capello and you should be proving yourself before you sign’.

“So, look, I’m completely relaxed about that and I have no idea where we’ll be in the middle of July, other than I hope it’s Trafalgar Square and let’s get the party on.”

Southgate feels his players and the team will be better served by solely concentrating on Euro 2024 rather than anything else.

“I think that has the potential to negatively affect the reaction to the team. The team needs the clearest run they can possibly have at this tournament, so my job is to remove pressure from the team where possible. We’ve got to accept some pressure because we’re one of the favourites. But, equally, I don’t want to put anything additional onto the team.

“I have to deliver in the job I’m in, so there’s no point in me thinking any further ahead than that. My focus is delivering the best possible European Championship for England. Since I came to St George’s, our target has been being in the final four of things, with the ultimate aim of winning.

“If you look at the trajectory of a team, we’re at that point where we’ve done a lot of the climb and the enjoyable bit, and we’re at that last bit, really, of winning and getting over the line. We’ve shown consistency in the world rankings for the last five years, so there’s consistency of performances. We have to translate that with the next step now. That’s the challenge I have to accept as well, and I’m really comfortable with that.”

When it was put to him how there was a heave for Terry Venables to stay after Euro 96, Southgate joked: “Yeah, but we could stink the place out and everybody wants shot. So there’s no point in speculating about what might happen after the summer.”

He then clarified with a laugh: “I’m not expecting us to stink the place out.”